1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to automatic flow charting of call flow programs used in call centers.
2. Background Art
A “call flow” is a call handling path that a telephone caller follows when calling a call center. The call flow determines the caller experience and is often based on decisions taken in response to touch-tone or spoken input from the caller. A call flow is programmed in a call center as a call flow program having instructions that control ringing, announcements, music on hold, routing to a specific group of agents of the call center at set priorities, and so on. For example, in Avaya communication manager telephone systems, each call flow is programmed as a “vector” using an arcane set of command words and text-based input methods.
A call flow program is often created using a graphic flow chart as a functional specification which is augmented by textual description. A call flow is likely to be updated after being in use at a call center. This entails modifying the call flow program to implement the updates. The flow chart should be updated as well as the flow chart represents key documentation of the call flow. Updating the flow chart to account for the updates requires meticulous attention over time to ensure that all of the updates are accounted. Such a requirement typically results in ignoring the updating of the flow chart for one reason or another. Consequently, call center personnel do not have access to flow charts depicting current call flow programs used in the call center. Such personnel desire to be able to obtain a flow chart which reflects an updated call flow programmed into the call center without already having access to a flow chart of the original call flow program or a flow chart of any previous version of the call flow program.